C.G. Lancaster

The Ginocchio Hotel is the best-documented of his Marshall buildings. A Society of Architectural Historians entry credits Lancaster of Marshall with the two-and-a-half-story hotel beside the Texas and Pacific tracks, built for Charles A. Ginocchio, an Italian immigrant who came to Marshall in 1871. Its north wing held a lobby, dining room and ballroom with a terrace that served buffet lunches to westbound passengers, and forty guest rooms filled the upper floors. The Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities credits Lancaster with the 1900 Moses Montefiore temple, built by Sonnefield and Emmons.

What the plaque says

C.G. Lancaster Renowned architect Cornelius Granberry Lancaster was born on March 4, 1863, in the city of Marshall. He studied architecture at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) from 1892-1895, but did not complete his degree. He returned to Marshall where he began to work as an architect. Lancaster married Donye Birdsong (1866-1954) and the two had six children together. Their son, Jesse Cornelius Lancaster (1901-1992), worked with Cornelius for a few years before moving to Tyler. In 1895, Lancaster partnered with James Riely Gordon (1863-1937), an architect from San Antonio. The two collaborated on the beaux-arts style Harrison County courthouse completed in 1901. Lancaster then supervised the construction and was named supervisor of all improvements and repairs of the courthouse during a 1910s renovation. Lancaster designed a variety of buildings in Marshall including the Ginnochio Hotel, city hall and Elks Club building. He also designed residential, commercial, civic and educational buildings throughout the state. Changes in architectural styles are reflected in his works, from Richardsonian Romanesque to Classical Revival and Art Nouveau. Lancaster's business was forced to close in 1939 due to conditions brought about by the Great Depression. That same year, he went to work as a supervisor for the Work Projects Administration in Dallas. Lancaster passed away on December 1, 1947, but his legacy lives on through the many buildings he designed. (2019)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harrison County Historical Museum — steps away
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 0.5 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Harrison County — steps away
• Whetstone Memorial — steps away
• Marshall — steps away
• First Telegraph Office in Texas — steps away